28 Month old wanting to nurse instead of eat

[blithespirit]

I'm tandem feeding DD1, 28 months of age and DD2, 6 months of age. Everything is going really well with both girls' health and growth. In the last month though, DD1 has started wanting to nurse instead of eat solid foods and is also asking for pumped milk instead of cow's milk, which she has been drinking since the age of 1.

I am concerned that she is not eating enough food. I do know that it is normal for toddlers to go on food strikes but I am concerned that she will not get the necessary nutrients if she is filling up on breast-milk. I know breast milk is good for her and I want her to continue bfing but I'm wondering if I should make a rule that she has to have food before bfing. In the morning I let her wake up to bf for an extended period of time and then she does not want to have breakfast. I'm afraid to ask her pediatrician because he is a little bit more traditional than I like and I'm afraid he will say it is a social problem.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice!

[D_McG]

My son was like that (I weaned him close to age 2). I didn't fight it initially but ultimately I had to stop it. It just felt wrong for many reasons. With my daughter I never allowed it. To preserve my sanity I had her on a kind of loose schedule (15 mos or so) and if she was hungry or thirsty at other times then she had food or drink to enjoy. I was closed

[Marissamom]

how long after the morning nursing are you waiting before breakfast? I haven't had an experience like this yet, but I know with DD when we had to get her solids intake up because she just wasn't gaining, I found that it was optimal to wait about 30-45 minutes after nursing before giving her solids. milk moves through the stomach quickly, so that's about the time needed for their stomach to have room, and for her that was still a while before she wanted to nurse again, so she would actually eat the solids.

[TiredX2]

How much bmilk are you talking about? I think it is *very* common for tandem nursing kids to really up their intake. DD was 31 months when DS was born and she basically went back to full time nursing. I figured she was catching up for what she missed with my decreased supply while I was pregnant. She put on around 5 lbs fairly quickly and her poop went totally to bfed baby poop. I think that is pretty normal actually.

In your situation I would completely eliminate non-human milk and just serve water with meals. That way DD would be encouraged to fill up on food instead of a milk product which she can get from nursing. If she has access to human milk there is absolutely NO need for her to have a different milk source.

From what I have read, the optimal diet for a 12 month old is a minimum of 75% of calories from bmilk. Both of my children were in the high 90s at one year. My goal was to have them under 75% by two years and that also happened. There were times, though, that they went widely up or down from those numbers. I am sure that DD was up over 90% again when DS was really young. It moderated itself, though.

Something that really reassured me when my two year old nursed sooooo much was to look at the diets of non-nursing children we knew. One of DD's friends ate only pretzels & marshmellows around that age. I figured if DD *only* nursed and had no other food, at least she was better off than that. We've also known a few kids who got the vast majority of their calories from cow's milk at that point. I think that is pretty common, so it should be "the same" but BETTER to have that main source be human milk.

[lookatreestar]

Originally Posted by TiredX2

How much bmilk are you talking about? I think it is *very* common for tandem nursing kids to really up their intake. DD was 31 months when DS was born and she basically went back to full time nursing. I figured she was catching up for what she missed with my decreased supply while I was pregnant. She put on around 5 lbs fairly quickly and her poop went totally to bfed baby poop. I think that is pretty normal actually.

In your situation I would completely eliminate non-human milk and just serve water with meals. That way DD would be encouraged to fill up on food instead of a milk product which she can get from nursing. If she has access to human milk there is absolutely NO need for her to have a different milk source.

From what I have read, the optimal diet for a 12 month old is a minimum of 75% of calories from bmilk. Both of my children were in the high 90s at one year. My goal was to have them under 75% by two years and that also happened. There were times, though, that they went widely up or down from those numbers. I am sure that DD was up over 90% again when DS was really young. It moderated itself, though.

Something that really reassured me when my two year old nursed sooooo much was to look at the diets of non-nursing children we knew. One of DD's friends ate only pretzels & marshmellows around that age. I figured if DD *only* nursed and had no other food, at least she was better off than that. We've also known a few kids who got the vast majority of their calories from cow's milk at that point. I think that is pretty common, so it should be "the same" but BETTER to have that main source be human milk.

all of this!!